


post it notes

by hubblestars



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Confessions, Domestic Fluff, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Post-Season/Series 05, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 05:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17636705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubblestars/pseuds/hubblestars
Summary: When Grace turns up on the doorstep to the beach house barefaced in silk pyjamas and mutters 'I miss you', Frankie knows they are on the same page.





	post it notes

**Author's Note:**

> ah hello!! it's been a long time since I've written because my studies and mental health have been A Lot. but I recently finished s5 and I was heartbroken so I thought I'd write a kinda fix it fic real quick! hope you enjoy <3

103 days after she’d left Frankie with a hug that smelled like flowers and vodka, Grace is standing on the beach house doorstep in the rain with a suitcase and strokes of deep purple and blue under her eyes, like she hasn’t slept in weeks. She’s barefaced - Frankie has never seen the lines of her face, before, and feels privileged to see them now, etched into Grace’s wrinkled skin like a map. She’s not glamorous, not pampered; her hair is stuck to her forehead, her silk pyjamas soaked from the storm, but Frankie thinks passionately that she’s never been more beautiful. Grace’s expression is uncertain while she hovers in the doorway, as if she thinks Frankie is going to slam the door in her face.

“I miss you.” Grace says, her voice cracking.

When Frankie pulls Grace through the door by her hands with an uncontrollable laugh bubbling out of her throat, it’s because she knows Grace is finally coming home.

*

Grace is standing dripping raindrops on the living room carpet by the television and Frankie doesn’t quite know what she’s supposed to do.

It doesn’t feel real to see her there, and for a moment Frankie wonders if she’s drank too much bong water and this is all a desperate pining fever dream. Maybe she’ll wake up in the couch in a few minutes with her face buried in Grace’s blanket and she’ll have to complete her sixth healing ritual since Grace married Nick. But… no, there Grace is, looking back at Frankie from across the living room with raised eyebrows, her eyes glittering with amusement despite the tear tracks on her cheeks.

The happiness in Frankie’s chest, so filling that she thinks she might be sick, makes her impossibly guilty as soon as she realises Grace’s puffy face, her wet cheeks, aren’t just from the rain. Of course Grace will be heartbroken to leave Nick. Of course. Because while Frankie had been getting high and frantically scrubbing tables and violently painting, Grace had been living the absolute dream with the perfect man. With his perfect hair. In their perfect _GraceandNick_ marriage. Obviously.

Before Frankie can launch into a loud, rambling speech to break the awkward silence - most likely including Ray Donavan and all of the television shows Grace has missed - the chickens start squawking. Frankie bursts out laughing at the mortified look on Grace’s face.

“That’ll just be Rosa Parks and George Clooney fighting again.” Frankie waves a hand, and Grace half smiles. Frankie finds  _ her  _ Grace, suddenly, in the frail and lost woman in her sitting room - her hands on her hips, her eyes swirling with a mixture of irritation and affection. It’s like she never left. Like they’re still  _ GraceandFrankie  _ and Nick was just some random capitalist who Frankie might see on the streets and, say, trip over.

“You got  _ chickens? _ ” She says, indignantly, and Frankie doubles over laughing. She half expects Grace to walk right back out of the door, but she stays leaning against the fireplace.

“You got Nick.” Frankie shrugs, “I got chickens.”

“I don’t think they’re synonymous.” Grace giggles, and the nervous tension between them breaks away. “But fair enough.”

Their shared laughter makes Frankie feel like the beach house is home, again, and she uses grabbing the blanket on the couch as an excuse to look away before the hard, aching feelings make her speak. She fights the urge to wrap her arms around her best friend with admirable effort, instead settling with draping the blanket around Grace’s shivering shoulders. Her hands tremble as Grace smiles at her, her bare face so much prettier up close under the dim light, but she doesn’t step back, doesn’t run away. Frankie ran away to Santa Fe. Grace ran away with Nick.  _ It’s time to stop running,  _ she thinks boldly.

“Welcome home, stranger.” Frankie says. Her trademark jovial tone slips to a whisper, and Grace seems to sway on her feet. She wraps the blanket closer around her, and Frankie wrestles with the knowledge that she’s been sleeping with Grace’s blanket without her knowledge for  _ months,  _ that it had found a home in Frankie’s studio, and now Grace is smothered in it.  _ In me,  _ Frankie things. Her heart twists again, hot and hurting.

“Home.” Grace echoes, oddly vulnerable. “It’s been a while.”

_ My fault,  _ Frankie thinks, looking up into Grace’s accusing eyes. She’d refused invitations to the  _ GraceandNick  _ household. She’d feigned ignorance and ignored Grace’s phone calls, had thrown herself into painting and  _ Vybrant  _ and had even, on one memorable occasion, took a pilgrimage to the mountains to meditate for five weeks (in which her ridiculous family had wondered if she’d died and had almost held a funeral).

_ Heartbreak isn’t easy for me,  _ Frankie wants to say, but she shouldn’t.

_ You left me, _ Frankie thinks, and that’s an even worse idea.

“I’ve been busy.” Frankie says cheerily, stepping away quickly from Grace’s warmth (the smell of flowers and homemade cookies and  _ god, her perfume)  _ so she can throw herself onto the sofa. “You know how it is. Not only am I a critically acclaimed artist, but an enterprising business woman, and I really don’t have time for pleasantries. You know how it is.”

“I see.” Grace replies, smirking slightly, and Frankie almost sags with relief. She’s off the hook. Grace couldn’t suspect, could never tell, that Frankie has been holed up here trying to process the weight of her feelings. That she’s painted a million canvases with Grace’s face and thrown them in the trash. Or burned them. Or thrown them off the wall. As you do.

Grace sits beside her on the sofa and it feels too much like  _ before  _ Nick. Before the line had finally been drawn between them.

“What are we watching?” Grace asks casually.

_ We.  _

“Did Nick hurt you?” Frankie blurts, gripping the remote with white knuckles. “Because I swear if he-”

“No.” Grace sighs. Averts her eyes. Her voice cracks. “I hurt him, Frankie.”

*

Grace wakes to the sound of the ocean and it’s  _ glorious.  _ When she opens her eyes she’s at the beach house again -  _ finally  _ \- and the bed is empty but so soft and the room is filled with morning light. Glowing and fading. She knows this is were she’s meant to be. So when she reaches for her makeup bag, she pauses and thinks  _ Frankie’s already seen my face.  _ Frankie had looked at her with those same, bright eyes, no matter how much lipstick she wore. And her hands slip away from the foundation.

She stays bare.

Grace is mortified at her behaviour last night, how she’d stormed in here drenched from the rain like she’d never left; she can’t even blame it on alcohol, because she’s been dreadfully sober for at least two days. But the humiliation slips away when she sees the post it note stuck to the back of her bedroom door. 

Frankie has drawn a beach house and signed it  _ Frankie  _ with a little heart above the i. As if to say,  _ you’re home, Grace.  _ She certainly is. 

Grace pauses when she steps out into the stairway. She can hear the tell tale banging and swearing that signals that Frankie is in the kitchen, only surprising because Frankie is up earlier than her, and she smiles to herself.

The kitchen is turned upside down, the smell of burning dangerously distinct in the air, and Frankie has frizzy hair and butter on her cheek. Grace’s heart constricts painfully because it feels like she’s back where she belongs, like she hadn’t ran away for 103 days and then left Nick in the dust like so many men before him.

“Oh, Grace!” Frankie announces, brandishing a butter knife in the air. “Thank god you’re awake. I think I’ve burned something.”

Grace wants to laugh. Wants to swipe the butter from Frankie’s cheek with her thumb. Wants to tangle her fingers in Frankie’s stupid, wild hair. Wants to imagine every morning could start like this. But the guilt swallows her whole.

*

Hours after Grace has left to tell her daughters that she’s divorcing Nick - a necessary evil, Grace tells Frankie with a grimace - Frankie finds the post it note on the door to her studio.  _ Eat lunch! _ , it reads, sharp yet comforting in how Grace-like it is.

Frankie begrudgingly eats lunch. Even when she drops paint in her soup, it’s worth it for the smile on Grace’s face when she sees the dirty dishes by the sink.

*

“You ready to start processing?” Frankie asks.

It’s Carl’s birthday party and Grace and Frankie (not yet GraceandFrankie, Frankie thinks solemnly), are hovering by the snack table, admittedly more for Frankie’s benefit than Grace’s. Grace flicks a sausage roll at her and Frankie shrieks.

“I’ll take that as a no, then.” Frankie grumbles. But when Grace falls asleep on the couch while they’re watching  _ Sabrina the Teenage Witch  _ a few days later, she leaves a post it note on Grace’s blanket anyway. And as Frankie looks at her for a moment - Grace’s her hair falling across her eyes as she breathes (adorable) - she knows they’ll be okay.

*

Grace wakes from a dreadful sleep on the couch with her neck aching; she picks a post it note from her blanket before it slips to the carpet.  _ I’m here when you’re ready,  _ it reads, sweet in it’s sincerity, made less serious by the little cat with a witch’s hat sketched in the bottom corner. Grace catches Frankie’s eye from where she’s muttering to herself in the kitchen, trying to work out how to use the slow cooker, and they look at each other for a long time until the flush crawling up Grace’s neck begins to burn.

*

They’re in the middle of a Vybrant session - tapping away at their respective laptops, the silence broken by Frankie’s rambling - when Grace looks at Frankie properly. She looks  _ good.  _ Happy and free, her cheeks flushed as she bounces in her seat and taps away at her computer (probably looking at cat videos rather than working, Grace thinks dryly). Grace had been too caught up in her own feelings when she’d come home to notice the bags under Frankie’s eyes and the weariness in the lines of her mouth. But now she’s full of youth.

They both are. Somehow coming back here and running around after Frankie (and away from wild chickens) had made Grace feel twenty years younger.

Grace sticks a post it note on Frankie’s forehead.  _ Thank you,  _ it reads. 

*

A month after Grace comes home, they’re  _ almost  _ GraceandFrankie again. Somehow they’d settled back into their lives with each other - fighting for Vybrant and shouting at each other and masterfully tiptoeing around their feelings, as per usual. Frankie plays with a post it note as she half watches TV, not knowing what to say, only that Grace is asleep above her and it makes up for months and months of loneliness and crying over bad romcoms.

“Frankie.” Grace calls. She’s in her dressing gown, hovering by the couch, and Frankie looks up at her in surprise because it’s five in the morning and Grace is going grocery shopping in a couple of hours. But Grace looks serious, and so Frankie scrambles onto her knees. “I’m ready to process.”

“Oh good! I’ve been waiting for this. I’ve got a couple of-”

“Budge up.” Grace interrupts, and grabs a cushion close to her chest as she sits. She looks at the television instead of at Frankie, and Frankie realises this is going to be some life changing, universe shattering shit, the kind like going to Santa Fe or impulsively marrying a rich toy boy.

“I’m all ears.” Frankie says, cheerfully, “Well, technically, I’m not-”

“I left so I could come home.” Grace says quietly. The world stops for a moment, tilts on it’s axis. Frankie freezes. 

Grace flushes and Frankie wonders at the softness of her, the vulnerability, so honest compared to the cold and empty Grace she’d met years and years before. Frankie wants to reach out to her but she sits on her hands, instead, knows the dangerous territory they’re heading towards needs to be approached with caution.

“Oh, he was so nice to me when I told him, Frankie. I felt awful. He figured it out what I needed even before I did.” Grace laughs. “I did a lot of thinking, you see. I didn’t even drink for a while, you know. And I… I hated it there. He’s a good guy, but I couldn’t stay there.”

Frankie can’t breathe. It’s like they’re approaching something, something irreversible that she’s only ever dreamed of, and the thickness of the tension makes her heart hammer against her ribcage. She can feel her pulse in her ears.

“Did you think about me?” Frankie asks. It’s the wrong question.

But Grace turns to her and meets her gaze and the whole world seems to fade away. Frankie prays to any God that’s watching over her that she’ll keep her self control. She almost loses it when Grace reaches forward and grabs her hand.

“All the time.” Grace murmurs, looking down at their hands.  _ It’s the wrong time for palm reading,  _ Frankie wants to blurt hysterically. “I divorced Nick so I could come  _ home _ , Frankie. Back to you.”

Frankie can’t help herself - she smiles brightly, and Grace shakes her head at her, amused.

“Don’t get cocky.” Grace warns, but Frankie’s laughing now.

“I did it,” Frankie bursts out, “I cracked Grace Hanson. I, Frankie Bergstein, am a genius.”

“Your head is already big enough.” Grace says, playing with Frankie’s fingers. And then - miraculously - she raises the back of Frankie’s hand to her mouth and kisses it. Her breath is warm against Frankie’s hand, her lips plump and soft against her skin, and it’s too much. 

“Grace.” Frankie breathes. The laughter is gone, now - there’s only room for the bubbling nerves, choking her.  

“You’re warm.” Grace murmurs, unnecessarily. The room is quiet and Grace is too close, too close. It’s only when Grace curls her hands around Frankie’s shoulders and leans forward that Frankie realises what’s going to happen, and she suddenly jumps from the couch, shaking.

“What the hell are you doing?” Frankie asks, pretty sure she’s having another stroke. 

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have-”

“Nuh uh. You can’t take this back, Grace.” Frankie paces restlessly, half off her brain still preoccupied with the image of Grace leaning towards her, about to  _ kiss  _ her. I missed her, Frankie thinks randomly. “You know, I’m all about sexual freedom, but you’re not even  _ divorced  _ yet. You were married! And snogging me on the couch is not a solution to whatever end of life crisis you seem to be having-”

“You left me, too.” Grace interrupts sharply. “Don’t pretend like this is all on me. For all I know you’re still hooking up with Jacob whenever he pops down from Santa Fe-”

“Oh, fuck you.” Frankie declares. The accusation sits heavy and poisonous in her chest. “Now that you’ve got tired of men you think you can come dump your sexuality crisis on me. You don’t know  _ anything.  _ You’re just going to go crawling back to Nick after you get sick of being my babysitter. You’ve done it before. ”

Grace is standing now, furious. 

“Frankie.” She growls. “You can’t proposition me and flirt with me for  _ years  _ without expecting me  to act on it. Don't get all high and mighty now.”

“But you’re straight!” Frankie bursts. “You’re not  _ supposed  _ to act on it. It’s all a stupid joke. And the difference is… is that I… I love-”

Frankie realises too late. The epiphany comes in a burst of _I love you, I love you, I’m in love with you, Grace._ An easy answer to the turmoil and heartbreak and the _feelings,_ like the twist in her heart when Grace smiles at her and the fluttering in her stomach when she watches Grace just exist like some type of perfectly carved _goddess._ She flies from the beach house in a swish of her dressing gown, pretending she doesn’t see the look of shock etched across Grace’s face. Running away, she thinks, is far more comfortable.

*

There’s sand in Grace’s socks as she runs across the beach. She’s been here before. It’s cold and her knees ache and the wind is working against her, but still she runs in time with the tide. Towards Frankie, who’s standing motionless by the sea. Grace can just her dressing gown blowing behind her through the darkness.

“Frankie.” She calls, and Frankie turns towards her.

When she finally reaches her - against all of the odds, her knees trembling - she grabs Frankie by the shoulders. She’s so beautiful under the moonlight. So vibrant. Oh, Nick was right, Grace thinks, he could never compete with her.

“I’m sorry.” Grace bursts out. It’s her last chance to fix things - to repair what they keep on breaking. “You’re right. But I can’t live without you, Frankie. You’ve made me the best person I could be. And I love you, I do, in every single way. I’m sorry it took me so long to realise it. I only want you, Frankie. I want to spend forever with you. If that makes me selfish then I want to be.”

“This sounds like a proposal.” Frankie grins, even though there are tears streaming down her face. Grace laughs, too.

“It could be.”

“Oh, Grace. I do I do I do.”

Frankie grabs Grace by her face and kisses her, hard, on the sand that they’ve grown and broken on so many times before. She tastes like tears and cake and Grace has never felt more alive - just the press of her lips, the taste of her, makes Grace feel more than a hundred relationships with men ever had. The only thought that goes through her brain is  _ Frankie, Frankie, Frankie,  _ but it isn’t terrifying. She feels like home. And Frankie’s hair is just as soft and warm as Grace had imagined it would be.

Frankie pulls back to kiss all over her face - her cheeks, her forehead, her eyelids, her nose - and Grace pulls away, giggling.

“This is going to need some serious processing,” Frankie warns. “A few hundred years of vlogging, at least.”

“And post it notes.” Grace agrees, her ears flushed pink, but then Frankie is kissing her again and the rest just disappears.

*

Frankie stirs awake at 2 in the afternoon and breathes out a content sigh. Grace’s side of the bed isn’t warm, anymore, but Frankie can imagine her there, remember here there, and that’s enough. She loves sleeping here every night. Her arm around Grace’s waist. Grace’s mouth hot against the back of her throat. It’s heavenly.

Then Frankie turns and there’s a post it note on Grace’s pillow.  _ I love you,  _ it reads,  _ eat lunch! _


End file.
